


you can run (but you can't hide)

by impsy



Series: What's done is(n't) done. [2]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, M/M, Secrets, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-13
Updated: 2012-10-13
Packaged: 2017-11-16 06:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impsy/pseuds/impsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles had promised Nora he'd tell Charlie about his history with Monroe - but he didn't mean to tell her -everything.-</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can run (but you can't hide)

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to "Skeletons in the Closet." Apologies for the way Charlie acts, I promise I'll make it up to her in the 3rd part (coming soon). :)

Miles had made a promise, and he intended to keep it.

But that didn't mean he had to keep it  _now._

A week had passed since Nora had made him swear to tell Charlie about his history with Monroe - well, part of it, anyway - and finally, finally, he felt like he was ready. He liked to be in control of things, liked to have a handle on what was going on, so over the past few days, he'd planned out exactly what to say. Any slips could give her hints that not all was as it seemed, inviting unwanted questions that would lead her toward figuring out the real nature of his relationship with Monroe, and that was the  _last_  thing he wanted to explain to her.

For the past few days, Charlie had been- well not  _ignoring_  him, but she definitely hadn't been as nosy as usual. Just gave him these  _looks_ , and when she'd once been endless questions, she been keeping her mouth firmly shut, even where his associations with Monroe were concerned.

But while he tried to figure out exactly what to say, he felt like he was constantly waiting for her to harass him for answers again. He wasn't ready, not nearly prepared enough to comfortably skirt around the big issue, the fucking elephant in the room that Nora agreed he should leave out of it.

But waiting for the axe to fall and more questions to come put him even more on edge, so he finally gave up and pulled her aside at their campsite one evening. It'd been so long since he cared what anyone thought of him that he was more anxious than he'd been in years.

She could tell he wasn't feeling himself, raising an eyebrow and folding her arms across her chest. "Oh, so you're  _finally_  ready to talk?"

And the plan went out the window. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Charlie rolled her eyes. "You've been looking like you don't know whether to talk to me or head for the hills for  _days_."

"So I should be taking maturity lessons from the teenager?"

"I'm twenty! I'm not a teenager!"

"Same difference!"

"Well you're the one who's acting like one!"

He bit the inside of his cheek. This was  _not_  how he wanted this conversation to go, and he firmly reminded himself that she was a 20 year old girl who just lost her mother-figure and that she was going to be a little testy. "I was  _going_  to answer your questions, but if you want to fight-"

"No!" she said, reaching out like she thought he was going to run. "No. I'm- I'm sorry."

He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. "Me too. All this... I've been trying to put it behind me for years." He shook his head and motioned to a downed tree nearby, and they sat down gingerly, as if waiting for the other to lash out again. "But  with everything that's going on... You're right. You deserve to know."

Her mouth quirked in a small, grateful smile at the admission. "What happened?"

Miles huffed a laugh. "Wanna be a little more specific?"

A pause, a small frown in thought. He could practically see her picking through her long list of questions for a good one to ask first. "How'd it start?"

Simple enough. "We were both marines. Went through Basic and served together for years."

Apparently not that simple, as she narrowed her eyes and sat up a little straighter. "What, so you decided it wasn't much of a jump from working for the government to  _being_  them?"

"Somebody had to do something," he snapped. "We had nothing. No one to tell us what to do, no laws. It was chaos."

"I was there," she shot back. "You think I didn't know how bad it was? My parents protected me and Danny, but we saw it too."

He shook his head. "You were a kid. You can't... I was a soldier my whole life, Charlie. And seeing the system just... Not even fall apart. It disappeared like it was never there in the first place."

"So you thought you could do better?"

Miles winced at her bluntness. "Had to be better than nothing. Thought so at the time, anyway. But Bas changed so much since-"

"'Bas?'" She raised her eyebrows, and his heart thumped.  _No more nicknames._  "So you were pretty good friends?"

He grimaced, but shook his head no. "We were- family," he said after a moment.  _'You're my family. That makes it my problem.'_

But god, they hadn't been, not then, not until three weeks after the blackout when they'd seen their first city burning, people screaming and dying with no one doing anything to help, and Miles had had enough of wondering how long they had left before they wound up the same and grabbed Bas by the shirt and-

"But why- How could you be friends with someone like that?!" Charlie demanded, yanking him out of the past. "Couldn't you see what he was like? Everyone's terrified of him and his militia, they're forced to give him food, he can have anybody he wants killed... God, he got your  _brother_  killed, Miles! My dad! And nobody can do anything to stop him!" She glared. "Do you think he even knows? Or  _cares_?"

"At this point? Probably not." He shrugged like it didn't matter, but losing Ben hadn't exactly been easy for him, either, despite how long it had been since he'd seen him.

She shook her head. "I guess I get why you didn't want to trust me after what happened when you trusted an evil bastard like Monroe-"

"He's not- Jesus Christ, he's not  _evil_! How long's it gonna take you to learn that the world isn't so fucking black and white?" His hands balled into fists as he stared her down. "It wasn't- fuck. It wasn't just him. It was me, Charlie. I'm the one who thought we could run everything better ourselves, I'm the one who said he should be in charge, I'm the one who got him an army. And when I finally realized how far off the reservation we'd gone, it was too fucking late, and I'd lost him. If I hadn't done so much, maybe we'd still-" He cut himself off, but it was too late.

Charlie's eyes got big as saucers. "You'd still- still what?"

He turned away, staring out at the trees and the wild overgrowth barely held in check by the flourishing animal populations, and wondered how the fuck he'd let himself get dragged into having this conversation. Damn Nora to hell.

"Miles, you'd- No." He saw her slap a hand to her mouth out of the corner of his eye, and he realized with a sinking feeling in his heart that she  _knew_. "Miles,  _no._  Please tell me you didn't- You weren't-"

Miles wanted nothing more than to leave and never come back, to find a new city and change his name again and lose himself in a new life. He never wanted to see the disappointment on her face, the look of  _betrayal_ , the knowledge that she could never trust him again, not after what he'd done.

He looked back at her anyway, and he saw how right he was.

She was - well, "pissed" didn't really cover it.

"What the  _hell_!  _This_  is why you didn't want to tell me?" Charlie surged to her feet, pacing back and forth, using her arms to punctuate every word. Her hair was thrown back and forth by her quick, stilted movements, and she looked more than half wild. "You and- and  _Monroe_?"

He grabbed her arm and yanked her back to a sitting next to him. "Go ahead and tell the whole fucking world about it, it's not like everyone wants me dead already," he hissed. "Jesus, Charlie, you can't just-"

She yanked her arm away, breathing quickly and her hands in fists like she was about ready to punch him. "You do  _not_  get to tell me what to do! How can I-" She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and trying to calm herself, before turning back and looking at him so intently he was taken aback. "Were you in love with him?"

Jesus. "It's been years since I saw him, Charlie. And we didn't exactly part on good terms."

She frowned. "You didn't answer my question."

He gritted his teeth. He was done, absolutely done with this conversation.

"You-  _Seriously?_ "

"Drop it, Charlie."

"How?" she demanded, and she sounded so desperate, so lost and confused, that he looked in her eyes and wondered if she'd ever be able to forgive him, if he'd ever forgive himself for telling her if she didn't. But her eyes hardened again, and the moment was gone. "What do you expect me to say?"

"Not a damn thing. Just- fuck." He turned away, his hands on his knees and fingertips digging into the muscle. "Forget it."

"You think I can just  _forget_  that you're in l-"

"Don't," he snapped, catching her eyes and holding them. "Just- don't fucking say it."

"I can't just let this go, Miles!" She stood up again, glaring down at him with her hands on her hips, and  _god_  she looked so much like her mom when she did that that Miles' heart ached with a guilt he'd never be rid of. "How am I supposed to just  _forget_  what you did? Monroe kidnapped my brother, and he killed my dad, and he's made all of our lives hell for my whole  _life_! And you!" She shook her head, tears in her eyes, but she was too angry to let herself cry. "You helped him. He couldn't have started all this without you. And I just- I don't know what to think anymore."

"You done?"

Charlie just stared for a moment, blinked back her tears, furrowed her eyebrows. "I- What?"

He nodded once, firmly. His gaze was steady, his voice perfectly calm. "Taking that as a yes," he said, then stood up and walked away without a backward glance.


End file.
